


Asymptote

by DaughterOfTheWest, Skylark



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Canon Decapitation, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Covering six years of relationship history in roughly 4.5k words, Developing Relationship, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Miscommunication, POV Alternating, Sadstuck, There's humor and fluff in here too even though the tags make it sound really sad, Trickster Mode, Trolling, implied one-sided autoresponder/jake english - Freeform, non-chronological storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/DaughterOfTheWest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake is alone in a cold stone box and from tips to toes, he aches.</p><p>(Team Dirk<3Jake's entry for HSWC main round 3, "Taboo.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asymptote

**Author's Note:**

> We took a lot of direction from the poem ["Taboo" by Nina Suba.](http://lovethispoem.tumblr.com/post/2977366413)
> 
> This was written right before the Brain Ghost Dirk/Jane/Jake update, so it's been slightly jossed by now. Sigh.
> 
> Art by [Granny](http://grannykin.tumblr.com). GIF WARNING somewhere around the middle of the fic. [Stella](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofthewest) wrote all of Dirk's pesterlogs and did a smashing job with the final scene. The rest is [Skylark](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/skylark), for better or worse.

**2012**

Jake is alone in a cold stone box and from tips to toes, he aches.

They hadn't taken his phone. At first he'd assumed it was a miscalculation on their part—a fatal flaw in their plan that the hero could cunningly exploit to full effect! He'd kept quiet to prevent them cottoning on, but the moment they'd locked him up his shaking hands had retrieved his phone from his sylladex.

Only then did he realize why they had let him keep it.

 

  


Jake stares at the screen blankly; he hasn't seen an empty chumroll in six years. Did someone tinker with his phone? There's a hazy yellow-pink gap in his memory and he can't recall for sure. No matter, he thinks. There's never been a puzzle he couldn't solve!

Hours later, his phone is slightly worse for wear and his pesterchum's still stubbornly silent. He hasn't yet sussed out what's wrong with it, though he imagines his grandma would've had it sorted by now with two paperclips and a bit of elbow grease. Jake thinks of the bewitched gray girl and shudders.

Now he paces (limps, really) around the cell perimeter, trying to cook up an escape plan, but the expected bolt of brilliance never comes. It’s frustrating in the extreme to be so useless! His friends are in trouble. Roxy's captured, Jane's not in her right mind, and...

His steps slow until he's standing quietly, one arm wrapped around his smarting ribs. He feels off-balance—staggered by a missing weight.

Jake turns, looking through the barred window to the black sky beyond. His phone dangles from his hand, and soundlessly, his lips form the shape of a name.

\--

**2421**

By the time Dirk realizes what's happened, the feeling's already thrown down roots.

It’s an ordinary afternoon. Dirk has just finished training on the roof and is taking a short break before returning to another robotics project. He's chuckling at Jake's messages, cheek resting on the heel of his palm, before he catches sight of himself in his screen's reflection. His muscles are loose, his mouth quirked into a soft smile, his brow unfurrowed. He doesn't recognize the expression on his face.

Then he does.

 _Jake,_ he thinks, and the feeling inside him flowers thick and cloying in his throat.

He jerks away from his computer and stares at his blurred reflection, which seems just as surprised as he is, struggling with the same feelings embedded in his—

"No," Dirk whispers.

He pulls himself back to his computer and begins to type.

GT: ...Strider are you there?  
\-- timaeusTestified [TT] is now an idle chum! --  
GT: Just give me a ring when youre back i suppose.  
TT: Oh, sorry.  
TT: I started working on a new program.  
GT: What does it do?  
TT: I'm just offloading some things.

 

He hits "Save As" and types AttachmentReceptacle into the waiting text box.

\--

**2012**

Jake's mask protects him from the sharp tip of Dirk's inscrutable shades. Dirk is a half-sprawled weight on his chest, radiating warmth and comfort and all the other things a perfect boyfriend is supposed to, because he's Dirk, practically the definition of perfect, and—

Being pinned like this is making him a tad overheated. Jake tries not to squirm.

Dirk’s voice makes him jump. He can't remember the last time he heard it without needing pesterchum subtitles to decode his muffled sentences. What are you thinking about?

Nothing. Jake swallows. Just trying to get some shuteye.

Dirk’s hum seems unconvinced. Jake takes a breath and tries to relax, but it’s hard. Dirk's always in the corner of his vision, always keeping an eye on him—but it’s normal for his beau to be concerned for his welfare, isn’t it? Jake's probably fretting over nothing.

You have a heart murmur.

Jake nods, jolted out of his thoughts. Yeah. Grandma always said id grow out of it but i suppose that wasnt the case.

There’s a pause as Dirk presses closer. Sounds like benign mitral valve prolapse.

Gadzooks strider you can tell?

Dirk shrugs. That can be repaired. If you take—

Its not life threatening is it?

There’s a pause. Well, no. Dirk shifts a bit, listening. Jake’s grandma let him hear it through a stethoscope once—an added click that made his heart go in three-quarter time. He always thought it was rather charming.

It’s not really worth the effort to repair it, anyway, he says, and we don’t have the tools.

He thinks Strider falls asleep after that, lulled by the ticking of his malformed heart, but he can’t be sure. He wonders what he’s thinking—if Dirk’s thinking about him—and isn’t sure he wants to know.

LOTAK's air makes Jake feel tired and old. He wants to sleep. Plastic digs into his face and he can't.

\--

**2422**

GT: How has your fourteenth year been treating you?  
TT: Fine, I guess.  
TT: I almost forgot it was my birthday. Roxy had to remind me.  
GT: Well to mark the occasion i come bearing gifts!  
TT: Dude, you didn't have to get me anything.  
TT: Seriously. I don't really get into the birthday thing much—  
GT: Nonsense! Are you ready??  
TT: I'm always ready. Is that ever a question?  
TT: I'm ready as an Olympic runner who is prepped at the starting line after waiting for this race their whole life and took some super extra ready drugs this morning.  
TT: Soon he's going to get in deep shit with the disciplinary board, of course.  
TT: Steroids are bad, kids. Don't do drugs.  
GT: Haha well i doubt this gift could land either of us in trouble with the authorities. Here you go!  
GT: Ta-da!! <http://8tracks.com/jakeenglishsfreshbeats/bro-mix/>  
TT: Jake, did you make me a mix tape?  
GT: Yes! I know how much you like music so i put together some songs that remind me of you.

Songs. That remind him of Dirk. Wait, is this a coded message or something? People do that sometimes in movies and shit. Is Jake trying to—fuck, okay, calm down. Listen to the goddamn mix before freaking out.

“I Get A Kick Out of You”—a romantic song. Of course he’d choose some old-timey shit and lots of that stuff is about romance but does that mean he’s actually trying to...?

Maybe later tracks will be informative.

TT: Did you seriously put "Baby Got Back" on here?  
GT: Quite right! Its like all that hip hop rapping you listen to isnt it?  
TT: Yeah, yes. Yes it is.  
TT: Wow, uh, thanks bro.  
TT: You sure know how to make a dude feel special.  
TT: ...  
TT: "I'm On A Boat"? Really?  
GT: It seemed quite apropos with you living in the middle of the ocean and all! And it talks about fashion and stuff and i know how much you enjoy your fancy duds.  
TT: English, you are a singular man. Sui generis as fuck.  
TT: This is probably the nicest present I've ever gotten.  
GT: Oh golly do you really like it strider?  
TT: Are you kidding? Hell yeah I like it.  
TT: I like it like you like Indiana Jones movies and Spider Girl and blue chicks. Which I still don't see the appeal of, by the way.   
TT: Essentially, yes, Jake. I like it.  
TT: Even if you have very questionable taste in music.  
GT: What! These songs are CLASSICS. I had to think long and hard about what would suit your musical sensibilities!  
TT: Long and hard, huh?  
GT: Yes indeed! It practically made me break out in a swea—  
GT: Confound it thats not what i meant and you know it. Im on to you!!  
TT: On to me? English, you're moving awful fast here.  
GT: Oh no strider ive cottoned on to your schemes and you wont be catching me in that trap again today. I am not ON to you in the way you are so crudely implying.  
TT: It's okay to admit it, Jake. You would not be the first who wanted the D.  
GT: STRIDER!!  
GT: This always happens! I was offering you a heartfelt token to celebrate your natal day and youve gone and twisted it to imply all sorts of things which i had no intention of implying!  
GT: I only hope that its given you an extra modicum of amusement since it IS your birthday and all. But i for one find it not amusing in the slightest!

Fuck, fuck, abort, abort.

TT: Shit, dude. I didn't mean to be a dick.  
TT: Seriously, I really do appreciate your present. You know, as a token of broship.  
GT: Well im glad to hear that.  
GT: Youre the best bro a fellow could want and i dont know where id be without you.  
TT: Dead in the jungle somewhere?  
GT: Come now im a dashing man of adventure theres no way id be THAT badly off. I take the jungle life in stride.  
GT: (And ill have you know that was a wholly INTENTIONAL pun. Two can play at that game!!)  
TT: I am withholding my jokes for your sake.  
GT: Oh good heavens ive had enough of your tomfoolery for one day.  
GT: Happy birthday and enjoy your music!!!!  
TT: I will, bro. Thanks.  
\-- golgothasTerror [GT] is offline! --

Dirk stares wordlessly at his computer screen. Then he hits play again.

For the rest of the day the same eight tracks spill, tinny and distorted, from his headphones.

\--

**2011**

He's thought about it, all right? Strider's a hard man to shake, and Jake's in the habit of giving ground. He's thought about it and he's—not adverse to the idea, honestly. Being swept off his feet, heart fluttering, closing his eyes as Dirk's lips descended—

But now his hands are quaking and he nearly _drops_ the thing, and the yammering AI and the ominous trembling beneath his feet certainly aren't helping. Or the fact that Dirk is—

Jake's eyes slide away from it. He—he can't. The skin, sallow and tight. Vessels like tendrils coiling from the neck. Blood slicking his wrists, his forearms. He's just grateful that he can't see its eyes.

It's heavy, bodies are always heavy, _not again._

Its parted lips are smeared with red. Jake leans in and he's shaking and everything in him screams _stop_ and he says  There was stuff i wanted to say but the conclusion's foregone. Dirk needs him and Jake's never known how to be anything but a hero.

He turns and sees Dirk standing a few feet away. As their eyes lock, the head drops from Jake's fingers with a dull _thud_. Dead words gather like ashes in his mouth.

\--

**2423**

GT: 'Crocodile dundee' goes about wrestling all manner of wild critters and i thought golly im certainly as rough and tumble as him after all my years of adventuring.  
GT: So tomorrow i do believe ill head over and give that old ram what for!  
TT: You’re serious.  
TT: You aren't trying to troll me? Because we both know how that goes. I am the impenetrable fortress of untrollableness. I am the Fort fucking Knox of trolling.  
GT: Unlike someone who shall remain anonymous but whose name begins with s and ends with trider i always mean what i say and say what i mean! Bullets only seem to make it angrier and i cant imagine its larger than a wild asian water buffalo so it should be well within my limits.  
GT: Not that ive wrestled a wild asian water buffalo but it did look thrilling in the movie.  
TT: How the fuck does this seem like a good idea? Jake— that was in a movie. They had stuntmen and multiple takes and a trained fucking buffalo named Daisy or some shit who will "moo" on command.  
TT: You are going into the ACTUAL wilderness and looking for a fight with a very deadly creature you know nothing about.  
GT: Nonsense im a grown lad i can take care of myself. Push has come to shove and ive had enough of allowing these monsters to boss me around in my own home!  
TT: This can only end with you mangled.  
TT: You don't have anyone out there to patch you up if you get hurt, anyway. You have to be careful.  
TT: I warned you about the steers, bro.  
TT: Don't do it.  
GT: ...You really think i shouldnt?  
TT: Yes. I don't think you should go wrestle a wild animal that might kill you.  
TT: If you die, what will I do with myself all day?  
TT: NOT talk about bad movies? Or have a bro to discuss robotics with?  
GT: Well if youre so adamant about it i suppose i could try some other way. After all youve never STEERED me wrong before.  
TT: You just made a pun. Hold on, I have a tear in my eye.  
TT: Sorry, you just made a GOOD pun.  
TT: That specification was necessary.

Brobot handles the lusus and Dirk says No problem when Jake thanks him.

For the rest of the day Dirk is fidgety, distractible. His brain keeps crunching might-have-beens and every outcome is negative. But Jake listened to him, didn't he? And then Dirk took care of it. That's enough for now.

Dirk's got this under control. He can make this work.

\--

**2009**

When Jake comes to, he's on on his back, staring at the variegated green of the trees above him. The pounding of his head keeps time with his heartbeat, and the sun through the leaves seems too bright; he squints and it only helps somewhat. He vaguely recalls Brobot flashing into striking range before he could get his guard up and the shock of the metal fist against skull. "Right to the old braincase again," he mumbles.

A swipe of his tongue determines that his teeth are all accounted for; wiggling his limbs identifies bruises, strained muscles, but nothing broken or sprained. He's gotten off easy this time, but he continues to lie on the floor, limp and exhausted.

All this scrapping's for his own good—Strider tells him so, and Jake does believe him—but he wishes it didn't hurt so much. He said he'd wanted a sparring partner, emphasis on _partner_ , but Brobot only takes the sparring to heart.

He hears a rustling in the bushes to his right and adrenaline floods his system. In a moment he's up, albeit swaying on his feet. "Come on, have at me then," he shouts, raising his fists to guard his head. He won't make the mistake twice. Strider would be pleased, he thinks; he's learning.

Brobot's a poor replacement for the man he calls his closest friend, but it's all he has.

\--

**2012**

"You don't have to if you're quite set against it," Jake murmurs, voice oddly breathless.

Dirk is determined to pretend that his face isn’t cherry red. “No, dude. I mean, yeah.” Inside his chest there’s a knot tightening: _your eyes are weird and your nose is big and you look like shit because you haven’t slept and Jake is never going to think you’re attractive—_

Jake leans in before he catches himself. "Ah—after you," he says.

Dirk hesitates, just for a moment. He grips the arm of his glasses, feeling the flux of anxiety churn deep in his stomach. He keeps starting and freezing. How fucking stupid.

“Uh...” He glances up at Jake, who is watching him patiently. “You want to do it?”

Jake's eyes widen. "Are you certain? I've some idea of how much those pointy doodads mean to you."

Dirk’s adam’s apple bobs, “Yeah. You know, do the honors and all. Gotta let the dashing hero unveil the blushing ninja maiden, after all.”

Jake's laugh is jittery as he touches the tip of Dirk's shades. "Just like a band-aid," he says, attempting to sound reassuring and probably failing. "One, two—"

With a flourish, he pulls them off.

Dirk squints and blinks and wrinkles his nose, but Jake can see a fine dusting of freckles across his cheeks, a fan of pale lashes, and a pair of deep-set amber eyes.

His mouth drops. Dirk gets redder and alternates between staring down the boy in front of him and fixing his gaze on the ground. He doesn’t know where to look when people can actually _tell_. Fuck, what if he’s doing this wrong? No, he’s ugly as hell—Jake is just too nice to say anything, that gallant dick.

A beat passes before the glasses drop from Jake's fingers and he seizes Dirk's face in his hands. "Well spank me sideways and call me a heifer!" He grins, a blush spreading across his cheeks. "All this time I've wondered if you had a dashing scar or somesuch beneath those shady botherations and I never realized I was dating such a—a—"

Dirk fills in the blank with multiple derogatory adjectives before Jake swoops forward, pressing his lips against his.

Well. That’s new.

Jake's ridiculous front teeth catch against Dirk's mouth, and muffled laughter bubbles from his throat. His rough fingertips scrape Dirk's cheekbones, right over his freckles.

When he leans back, he gives Dirk a hard shake. "Strider!" he gasps, unable to come up with anything else, before grabbing him in a rib-creaking hug. The two of them topple to the ground, grinning like idiots.

\--

**2012**

TT: Hey, Jake.  
TT: I just found a secret passageway in a tower on LOTAK.  
TT: Also I fixed your gasmask, so if you’re heading back here soon it’s all ready for you.  
TT: I haven’t heard from you in fourteen hours.  
TT: Not that I’m keeping track.  
TT: I just don’t want you to miss out on some epic adventuring here, man.  
TT: Homer and Virgil have nothing on what I’ve got going on. This is James Cameron and Michael Bay and Stephen Spielberg’s ungodly three-way action-packed lovechild of gargantuan proportions.  
TT: It’s like Brodysseus just let loose a veritable wine-dark sea of epic jizz, that’s how much adventure is going on.  
TT: ...  
TT: You can tell I need you here to shut me up when I start making metaphors about the phallic secretions of crusty ancient characters in an attempt to express a brodicum of the awesome excitement here in gasland.  
TT: Jake, message me as soon as you get this.  
TT: At least tell me where you’re at.  
TT: If you’re busy just let me know.  
TT: ...  
TT: Well, I’ll talk to you later.  
TT: Bye.

\--

**2008**

GT: I dont think im making an outlandish request!  
TT: You sure you could handle this glorious mug?  
TT: I might blind you with my handsome face. I would never want to disable you in any way, dude, you've already got it hard enough on Hellmurder Island.  
GT: Oh poppycock. Weve been bros for years and i still havent the foggiest notion of what you look like!  
TT: Let me make you a deal.  
TT: I'll send you an ironic selfie.  
TT: But I don't want you to freak out over how awesome my face is, so I'm going to send it to you piece by piece.  
GT: What!  
GT: Thats preposterous. Its just a photo for crying out loud!  
TT: I've got to keep my masculine mystique somehow.  
TT: Where's the fun in doing shit like this the obvious way?  
GT: *Scratches chin.* Well when you put it that way it is somewhat like a puzzle to be solved isnt it?  
GT: That sounds well enough then. Send away!  
TT: Alright. Chill for a second while I find a pic.

Several hours later, the ping Jake’s pesterchum notification _“pings!”_ him out of a light doze.

TT: Piece numero uno. On your way.  
GT: Jumping jehosephat that gave me a fright! Hold on ill go look on the double.   
GT: This is more exciting than id imagined! When will the next piece be along?  
TT: My lips are sealed, bro.  
TT: Could be five days from now, five hours, or five seconds.

Over the next month, Jake develops a Pavlovian response to the sizzling sound of the transmaterializer, jumping with equal parts excitement and nerves. He pieces Dirk's photo together with dollops of tape, fascinated by the growing window into his friend's life.

Finally, the last fragment arrives. Jake's eyes rake over the aquiline nose, the thin press of his mouth. A warm feeling rises in his throat and makes him grin, though he couldn't rightly say why.

GT: I must admit that you ARE indeed in possession of a most pulchritudinous countenance.  
TT: Dude, don't make me blush. I'm no coy southern belle, here.  
TT: Oh my stars and garters, Mr. English.  
TT: Fuckin' swoon.  
GT: Bloody hell now youre making ME blush.  
GT: Its aces to have a face to put to the name after all these...

Only then does Jake realize.

GT: GODDAMNIT STRIDER YOURE WEARING FUCKING SHADES!!! 

\--

**2012**

The can is cold on Dirk's temple even though hours have passed. He can hear high-pitched giggling and what is apparently the shittiest BGM he's ever had the displeasure of hearing, more tinny and repetitive than even his Bro's movie soundtracks. He's exhausted. He wants to sleep. Soda bubbles in his veins and he can't.

He turns his head minutely and sees a splash of red. ARquiusprite floats just outside the circle of chaos that the others have created, ridiculous muscles straining his wifebeater apart, mouth slightly ajar. Dirk follows his line of sight and finds a blur of lime green at the end of it.

Dirk stares until ARquiusprite can't ignore him anymore. His smile is fleeting and broken-toothed before he turns away. Dirk watches the way his eyes rove across Jake's form, and something dark and vicious clutches in his gut.

He's somewhere beyond physics and game mechanics, trapped for once in a rattling cage of internal silence. He stares at AR, the person he knows best, a program he doesn't know at all, and listens to the laugh of a boy he no longer recognizes.

 _I ended it,_ Dirk thinks. _He's gone. It doesn't matter._

 _It doesn't matter,_ he repeats.

\--

**2006**

_"...When out of an orange colored skyyyy—WHAM! BLAM! ALAKAZAM! Wonderful you came by..."_ Jake sings, scaling a tree. His grandma used to tell him that he took after a monkey with how he was always swinging from branch to branch, that all he needed was a tail; she'd promised to build him one the day before she died and, well, humans manage without tails anyhow, don't they?

There's nothing like a rousing chorus to get his blood going in the mornings, loud enough to fill the jungle's unnatural silence. Jake's never alone, what with all the frightening fauna crowding against the existence he scrapes from betwixt their oversized paws, but sometimes he thinks it'd be bally nice if he had a fast-talking sidekick to watch his six, as it were.

Speaking of which...he peeks at his skulltop's screen, but his new friend doesn't seem to be online. With such different time zones he's not very surprised, but he bites back a swell of disappointment anyhow.

 _Strider,_ he mouths, feeling the word tick against his tongue. An enigmatic fellow with a mind as keen as his grandma's if Jake's read him right (and he's sure he has—he's an excellent judge of character if he does say so himself). His companion won't tell him how he discovered his chumhandle, but Jake's glad for him all the same. He says it again, _sotto voce._ "Strider."

The day's going to be a scorcher, but that's expected, really. Jake reaches the top of the the tree and looks out across the island that makes up his entire world.

"Strider!" he shouts, and laughs into the sun.

\--

**2012**

Roxy's invisible and Jane is all over the place, but if he concentrates, Dirk can feel Jake's heart faintly beating, stuttering and steady, thousands of miles away.

He’s still got that heart murmur. Dork.

In the middle of such vast nothingness it’s a rhythm he can hold on to; it’s about as much of a comfort as your recently-ex-boyfriend’s presence could ever be, but even that’s better than being alone.

He's 99% certain that they're in danger. The others can put up a good fight, but Jake only has dormant Page powers for defense. At any moment that heartbeat acting as Dirk’s compass could wink out, and—

Stop. That’s not happening. He won’t let it.

The problem with the incipisphere is that it has a way of seizing the tactical prowess he's relied on for sixteen years and tossing it, and him, into the middle of bumblefuck nowhere. “Best-made plans of mice and men,” right?

If he wasn’t chuckling he might just shed a (manly) tear.

He’d like to blame the game for his failure as a boyfriend, but he can’t. That fuck-up was 100% Strider-brand bullshit. Dirk had done extensive research on how to go about building romantic intimacy in relationships and all of his findings pointed towards time spent together, shared interests, and being vulnerable. The first two were easy. The third...

Dirk had gone through years of horrendously unironic dokis, soul-crushing anxiety, and excitement over seeing green text greet him each morning. It was a brewing storm only held back by stubborn instinct that refused to let the floodgate of emotional crap drown everything in sight for forty days and forty nights—fuck the mixed metaphor. Dirk was— _is_ —a natural disaster waiting to happen.

He tried so hard and got so far: but Dirk hasn't been able to keep away from Jake since he was twelve. Old habits are hard to quit.

He just needs to _talk_ to him—

golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]  
GT: Dirk!!

 

**Author's Note:**

> Dirk's story is told from the beginning of their relationship and works forwards, and Jake's scenes start at his most recent canon point (at the time) and go backwards until they reach the beginning. That way, when Jake's parts are happier, Dirk's are sadder, and vice-versa; they're never on the same emotional wavelength and they "miss" each other. Additionally, in their first and last scenes they're not only separated by a massive amount of physical distance as seen in the canon, but they're also separated by about 4,000 words of fic.
> 
> If you caught that "AttachmentReceptable" in the second scene was Auto-Responder in its preliminary stages, awesome! I couldn't figure out how to state this properly in the fic, but my headcanon is that when Dirk first realizes he's in love with Jake, he panics and tries to remove those emotions from himself and dump them into a computer program, where they can be (literally) codified, quantified, and contained. (It's an echo of when Brobot rips his own heart out for Jake in canon years later.) The result of this impulse was Auto-Responder, which is why AR's so endlessly fixated on Jake: it's kind of what he was accidentally built to do.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and comments are very much appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [not falling together](https://archiveofourown.org/works/950808) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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